The present invention generally relates to animal feed for livestock, and more particularly to improving the metabolizable energy content of that feed.
Feed is a major cost in the production of livestock for the meat industry, and a majority of the animals' diet is from grains, particularly corn, and oilseeds. Consequently, a major goal for improving the value of feed components is to increase the metabolizable energy content per volume of the feed. One example of this effort is the development of corn having a high oil content as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,160 to Bergquist et al.
New and improved plant species also have been developed for other, unrelated purposes, such as the production of polymers, for example poly [(R)-3-hydroxyalkanoates] (PHAs). Methods have been developed to recover PHA from the plant biomass for further processing into plastic resins useful in a broad range of industrial and biomedical applications (Williams and Peoples, CHEMTECH 26: 38-44 (1996)). Frequently, the PHAs or their derivatives must be recovered from oilseeds of certain plant, for example using methods described in PCT applications WO 97/15681, WO 97/07230, and WO 97/07229. However, it is not economically feasible to extract the PHAs from all types of oilseeds, unless, for example, the byproducts of extraction processing, such as oil and meal, have sufficient value.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide compositions and methods for enhancing the metabolizable energy content of animal feed products.
It is a further object of this invention to provide compositions and methods for enhancing the value of byproducts from the bioproduction of polymers.